This Album Ant Very Good (Anthology - Alien Ant Farm)

Member Name: rleigh

Product:	Anthology - Alien Ant Farm
Date:	29/06/08 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The cover track is pretty good.

Disadvantages: The rest of the album is pretty terrible.

'ANThology' is the oh so cleverly titled major label debut album from Alien Ant Farm, it was released in 2001 and features a cover of the Michael Jackson track 'Smooth Criminal'. The album features 13 tracks and consists of 56 minutes of music; it's not exactly a great album, the Michael Jackson cover is however well worth listening to.

'Smooth Criminal' was quite a massive commercial success for Alien Ant Farm, this Michael Jackson cover was the track which propelled the band to fame and is the only track from this album that I actually enjoy listening to. When the strongest track on your album is a cover you just know that you're doing something wrong; the original music of Alien Ant Farm is incredibly dull and boring, this cover track is however full of life and energy and this is something which is absolutely excellent to hear. It's incredibly stylistically similar to the original Michael Jackson version of 'Smooth Criminal', it's a well constructed cover from the band however and one that is I feel well worth listening to.

From first track 'Courage' right through to the albums closer 'Universe' the music created by the band here is for the most part really rather bland. The cover track is really very good, this is the penultimate track on the album however and therefore eleven terrible tracks must be endured here before you even get to the bands cover track. Every track possesses the exact same droning rock sound, the vocal approach taken by the band is not very impressive at all and instrumentally also there is little to be found here with the music of Alien Ant Farm. 'ANThology' is an incredibly dull rock album, and only with one track to go does the music get particularly exciting (and even then the band go back to bland in time for final track 'Universe').

'Movies' was the second track the band released commercially as a single from this album; if only I'd waited until the band had released this track before making the decision to buy this album. 'Movies' is just as lacklustre a rock effort as every other track on the 'ANThology' album; it really is a dreadful piece of music and not even the chorus manages to impress here. The use of guitar is extremely unimpressive, the vocals also are poorly put across by the band and never does this track ever really impress. This is the second best track on the album in my opinion, it's still dreadful though and therefore there is only one decent track present here and nothing else from this album impresses me in the slightest.

This is not at all an album that I personally would recommend investing in, only one decent track is featured here and even that one is a cover. Alien Ant Farm is a rock band with no real talent, this is an incredibly lacklustre album offering from the band and if the cover track is taken away then there's really nothing more to be found here. I seem to remember spotting this album on sale in HMV for £1 a while back; I guess it could be seen as worth the money for the one decent track that the album possesses, don't expect to gain too much more than 3 minutes of music entertainment out of this one though.

Summary: 'ANThology' is an Alien Ant Farm album probably best avoided.